Corporate blogging today - usage and characteristics

In the much-observed field of weblogs, corporate blogs are of particular relevance and interest. This study empirically examines the corporate blog phenomenon by reviewing the blog status of 250 companies from the consumer goods industry. Their blogs – if any – were tested with the help of different variables, such as the location of the company, the blog’s updating frequency or its interactivity. This allowed for testing certain hypotheses, in particular concerning the existence of corporate blogs in certain companies, industries and regions, or whether a blog’s traffic rank depends upon these variables. This survey suggests that a blog's traffic rank is significantly influenced by the frequency of blog postings and its interactivity features. These factors seem to greatly depend upon the sales volume of a company. However, the data sample at hand suggests that there is not yet a widespread usage of corporate weblogs.